Ali Twelvetrees
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dozenoaks.bsky.social
Ali Twelvetrees
@dozenoaks.bsky.social
1.1K followers 980 following 120 posts
Sir Henry Dale Fellow | Sheffield | cell & molecular neurobiology | kinesin, dynein, slow transport and neurodegeneration | preferably one molecule at a time | my opinions | she/her
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dozenoaks.bsky.social
Doggo was making her feelings known about Sunday morning grant writing… I put the laptop down to wrestle her off and the cat has now taken up the defence. Sigh.
A golden retriever uses a full body hug to block access to a laptop A grey cat sitting angrily on top of a laptop.
September 21, 2025 at 7:08 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Poster boards are ready and waiting for #NeuroBioUK - let’s get this science party started 🥳
The poster hall at the National STEM learning centre with astronauts suspended from the ceiling.
September 12, 2025 at 7:37 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Cooling off after a hot day, Sheffield style. Here’s to the weekend! Don’t forget to get those abstracts in for #neurobiouk25 :)

neurobiouk.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/registration
July 11, 2025 at 7:45 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Friday gave us a double treat at our Single Molecules seminars. Fab talks from @annestraube.bsky.social and ECR speaker Dylan. Between them they covered AFM, optical trapping and TIRF assays - serving fascinating insights into photosynthesis and microtubule transport. Single molecules FTW!
Professor Anne Straube presenting her team’s work on the Hook/KIF/dynein complex. Dylan Lewis presenting his PhD work on using AFM to dissect photosynthesis.
June 19, 2025 at 10:02 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Aaah - summer in Sheffield 🌞
A girl, a man and a golden retriever sheltering behind a rock during a squally rain shower in the Peak District, drinking hot chocolate
June 8, 2025 at 1:17 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Registration is now open for NeuroBioUK 2025!
This year we're looking forward to hearing from our plenary speaker @cathyabbott.bsky.social. As ever, all other talks chosen from submitted abstracts so get submitting - we can't wait to see you there!

neurobiouk.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/registration
An image montage advertising NeuroBioUK - 12th of September 2025 in York. The image is York cathedral superimposed over a fluorescent cortex mouse section coloured to look a bit like a dawn sky.
June 6, 2025 at 3:17 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
A recent selection of found cats for #caturday, separated by a few hundred years and a few thousand miles…
Wheat paste of a cat peering over a road sign, Sheffield Wheat paste of a jumping cat on Eccy Road, Sheffield A startled cat jar in the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, Santiago Started cat street art, Santiago
May 17, 2025 at 9:58 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Fantastic talk from @mathewhhorrocks.bsky.social for our Single Molecules @ Sheffield seminar series. Really creative applications of single molecule confocal systems for neurodegenerative disease research. Safe travels back to Edinburgh :) Thanks again to our sponsors @biochemsoc.bsky.social
Prof Horrocks standing in front of his presentation, introducing the need for sensitive diagnostics in neurodegenerative disease.
May 15, 2025 at 2:26 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Has anyone mentioned to the PM that a healthy life sciences sector is critically dependent on a healthy university system? One that includes humanities and arts that can deal properly in ethics and human experience? Taken from Starmer’s speech today -
Transcript of Starmer’s speech today: “Take our life sciences sector, another shining example of British brilliance. An absolutely pivotal part of our export economy. We’re going to back them, as well. We’re going to rip up the red tape. Cut the stifling bureaucracy that slows down clinical trials. Now Britain used to be better at this but we’ve taken our foot off the pedal. The latest data says it takes over 250 days to set up a clinical trial. I’m going to slash that to 150. And on top of that, I can also announce – a new investment up to £600m in a new Health Data Research Service. A welcome partnership with the Wellcome Trust strengthening the genome cluster in Cambridge. Making sure that patient data in our NHS is unlocked for the public good. An opportunity for growth – but more importantly to save lives with cutting edge medicine and Britain is so good at this.”
April 7, 2025 at 4:09 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Birthday rhubarb - I am Yorkshire now
A fetching felted rhubarb brooch pinned to an awesome hand knitted mohair jumper.
March 23, 2025 at 10:23 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Feeling totally shattered tonight after the presentation of a lifetime - my 10 year old’s year group. Kiddo is proud of me and not embarrassed of her mum (!!). The classes asked amazing questions - the true test that anyone followed anything I said. And now I am ready for bed!
Mitochondria moving around in a culture of cortical neurons.
March 13, 2025 at 8:19 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Good morning from the sleepy bees at Sheffield Botanical Garden. Guess it must be spring?
A bee inside a crocus flower A field of white and purple crocuses in a grass lawn. The sun is shining.
March 8, 2025 at 10:11 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Do you need some science joy in your life? Do you like neurons? Maybe glia? Molecules? Cell biology? Save the date for #NeuroBioUK25 - the venue is booked and we are excited to see you and your incredible science there on the 12th of September!

neurobiouk.sites.sheffield.ac.uk
An image montage advertising NeuroBioUK - 12th of September 2025 in York. The image is York cathedral superimposed over a fluorescent cortex mouse section coloured to look a bit like a dawn sky.
March 6, 2025 at 7:57 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
I could spend today in an existential crisis about the future of the world, or I could science… 🔬
A picture of a computer screen showing fluorescence lifetime measurements in a transfected COS7 cell.
March 4, 2025 at 12:24 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Beautiful start to the day in Sheffield this morning…
A golden retriever running across a frosty field, back lit by the morning sun Snow drops in the frosty grass Morning sun falling through bare trees surrounded by frosty grass
February 6, 2025 at 9:12 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
With all the optimisation we got great reproducible smFRET data. If you’ve got access to one of these instruments and a regular TC facility, then all you need is a couple of wells in a 6 well plate and you can have enough protein to test out what’s going on in a sensitive biophysical assay! 7/10
FRET efficiency across biological replicates for the CLIP-SNAP fusion protein positive control.
January 17, 2025 at 1:42 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Evie then optimised labelling time and concentration of ligands in our HEK cell expression system using in-gel fluorescence. CLIP is known to have much slower labelling kinetics than SNAP, but with this careful optimisation Evie got past this hurdle. 6/10
In gel fluorescence of cytosol from HEK cells transfected with CLIP-tag and labelled with CLIP-Cell TMR, optimising the concentration of ligand on the cells.
January 17, 2025 at 1:42 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Confocal smFRET is very sensitive to contaminations, because you only want one fluorescent molecule in the confocal volume at a time. Evie used flow cytometry to optimise the wash out time of SNAP and CLIP ligands to minimise contamination from unbound fluorophores. 5/10
Summary graph of flow cytometry analysis depicting time to wash out unbound fluorescent ligand from HEK cells.
January 17, 2025 at 1:42 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
We went for self labelling enzymes CLIP and SNAP because they are small and give us access to stable fluorophores. Small tags are best for FRET to maximise the dynamic range of the assay. Self labelling enzymes avoid having to deal with issues from fluorescent protein maturation. 4/10
Structures of the protein tags mNeonGreen, HaloTag and SNAP-tag annotated with their rough dimensions in nm, highlighting the compact size of the SNAP-tag. Structural model of CLIP-tag and SNAP-tag fusion protein labelled with cell permeable ligands TMR and 647 SiR.
January 17, 2025 at 1:42 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
We wanted to apply confocal based smFRET to see molecules freely diffusing - we thought this would be super helpful for kinesin. For this first foray we wanted to keep with simple N and C terminal tags because we weren’t sure where to safely place fluorophores by e.g. cysteine labelling. 3/10
Schematic depicting the alternating laser excitation in confocal smFRET
January 17, 2025 at 1:42 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Still frozen here…
A wood on a hill where the floor in coated in half melted and refrozen snow. A golden retriever walking across a frozen snow/ice coated playing field with the winter morning sun behind. A view of the glass house in Sheffield botanic garden from between the long borders, covered in melted and refrozen snow.
January 9, 2025 at 10:20 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Day three negotiating the ice sheet on the school run and we encountered a casualty of the conditions…
A car attempting an exit on our frozen road has reversed into a snowman…
January 8, 2025 at 8:49 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Last day of the school holidays - up early to play in the snow before it goes slushy ❄️
January 5, 2025 at 9:29 AM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
Alternative - dive in, enjoy the ride :)
November 26, 2024 at 7:17 PM
dozenoaks.bsky.social
I am very guilty of reading too many of these pieces on the rise and fall of social networks - probably thanks to nostalgia - but this one is a good one. The TL;DR - enjoy Bluesky while it lasts

www.sandofsky.com/end-of-twitt...
An extract from the linked article. Text reads: “Bluesky follows the classic crypto marketing strategy of rallying users behind a cause while downplaying their profit-driven motives. They make a big deal about filing as a Public Benefits Corporation, which means next to nothing.”
November 26, 2024 at 2:29 PM